through to be less like
released lovers than as companions who had found out each other's fitness
in a specially intense way. Upon the whole, I think that there must be
some truth in his insistence of there having always been something
childlike in their relation. In the unreserved and instant sharing of
all thoughts, all impressions, all sensations, we see the naiveness of a
children's foolhardy adventure. This unreserved expressed for him the
whole truth of the situation. With her it may have been different. It
might have been assumed; yet nobody is altogether a comedian; and even
comedians themselves have got to believe in the part they play. Of the
two she appears much the more assured and confident. But if in this she
was a comedienne then it was but a great achievement of her ineradicable
honesty. Having once renounced her honourable scruples she took good
care that he should taste no flavour of misgivings in the cup. Being
older it was she who imparted its character to the situation. As to the
man if he had any superiority of his own it was simply the superiority of
him who loves with the greater self-surrender.

This is what appears from the pages I have discreetly suppressed--partly
out of regard for the pages themselves. In every, even terrestrial,
mystery there is as it were a sacred core. A sustained commentary on
love is not fit for every eye. A universal experience is exactly the
sort of thing which is most difficult to appraise justly in a particular
instance.

How this particular instance affected Rose, who was the only companion of
the two hermits in their rose-embowered hut of stones, I regret not to be
able to report; but I will venture to say that for reasons on which I
need not enlarge, the girl could not have been very reassured by what she
saw. It seems to me that her devotion could never be appeased; for the
conviction must have been growing on her that, no matter what happened,
Madame could never have any friends. It may be that Dona Rita had given
her a glimpse of the unavoidable end, and that the girl's tarnished eyes
masked a certain amount of apprehensive, helpless desolation.

What meantime was becoming of the fortune of Henry Allegre is another
curious question. We have been told that it was too big to be tied up in
a sack and thrown into the sea. That part of it represented by the
fabulous collections was still being protected by the police. But for
the rest, it may be